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Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Family: How to Fight for Your Family in the Spirit

Are you claiming God’s promises for your children?

For years I have studied the powerful and edifying subject of the promises of God. There are literally thousands to be discovered and claimed. Several years ago, however, God gave me a flash of inspiration. It dawned on me that He has given a number of promises specifically concerning the sons and daughters of those who serve God.

That means your children—simply because of your faith in God—are protected by a mighty covering.

Are you living in light of this truth?

For Generations and Generations

Knowing God’s promises is essential because they give His people a basis for their faith. Once God’s promises are known, we don’t need to beg Him to do what He has already pledged to do. Instead, we can come to Him boldly, confessing His Word, fully expecting a manifestation.

Too often mothers and fathers do the opposite. They pray in desperation, begging God to move in the lives of their children. But that pleading approach went out the window forever in my life when God breathed this new insight into my spirit.

One of the first promises He led me to find was Deuteronomy 7:9, which says, “He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments” (emphasis added).

When I read those words, I shook my head in amazement. A generation, biblically speaking, is 100 years long (see Gen. 15:13-16). Doing the quick math, I calculated 1,000 generations times 100 years each—well, wow! If we sincerely walk with God in this life, then an invisible blessing will pass down through our family lines for 100,000 years. Can you imagine?

Of course, the 100-year parameter for each generation is likely not an exact figure, but a symbolic one, showing how dependable and long-lasting this promise is. But think about it. The principle still stands. Long after we’re gone, God’s covenant will hover over our offspring to empower them, and a reservoir of mercy will be there to restore them in time of need. And if that works for 1,000 generations, how much more powerful it is for the next two or three!

It was a Holy-Spirit-saturated moment that opened my eyes to the enduring impact of a life committed to God.

It’s Time to Declare the Decree

Sensing the importance of this revelation, I temporarily halted my other writing projects and began searching the Word intensely. Within several months, I had amassed 65 nuggets of gold in that mother lode—65 divinely authored commitments God makes to our children in His Word.

The following quickly became some of my favorites (with my emphasis added):

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30:19).

“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you might live” (Deut. 30:6).

“I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses” (Is. 44:3-4).

At a certain point, I reached a spiritual impasse. I concluded that never again would I plead for a move of God in my children’s lives. Instead, in the words of Psalm 2:7, I began to “declare the decree.”

In ancient times, after a king made a decree, he would send representatives into every corner of his domain to “declare the decree,” establishing as universal law what was initially a decision heard only by those present in the throne room. Now, because the enthroned King of all creation has decreed these 65 promises over our children, it is our responsibility to declare them—to verbally reinforce God’s laws in the natural realm, defying everything that opposes His purpose.

The Fruit of Promise

To declare the decree, I began praying prophetically. “I choose life for our family,” I proclaimed. “The death-dealing elements of this world will not destroy our children. According to God’s promise, He will circumcise their hearts—cutting away the influence of the world—and awaken within them love for Him and love for the truth. Yes, I claim it. He will pour out both His blessing and His Spirit on my seed.”

Within a few months of praying this way, my 5-year-old daughter was baptized with the Holy Spirit. After lying on the floor for about 30 minutes, crying and speaking in tongues, she fell into my arms and whispered, “Daddy, Jesus filled me—He really filled me.”

Was the timing just coincidental? I don’t think so.

Actually, my wife and I had to fight the good fight of faith just to have a family. We were told initially it was impossible for us to have children, but we prayed, and the God of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Hannah did it again—He worked another miracle, healing my wife, Elizabeth, of barrenness.

Our firstborn, Zion Seth, suffered oxygen deprivation during a very traumatic birth. The attending doctors claimed it would result in serious mental and physical challenges for him, to the point where he would probably never function normally. Instead, he entered college three years ago in the top honors society on campus, and physically he has no problems.

The challenges escalated with our next pregnancy. Around the fifth month, Elizabeth went in for her normal checkup, where, with very grim looks on their faces, the doctor and his attending nurse showed us the ultrasound image, explaining that our daughter had spina bifida—a hole in her spine—and would be crippled as a result. Next, the doctor advised that our daughter would have cretinism—a type of retardation—because of a thyroid condition Elizabeth was battling. Much to our surprise, even though he knew we were committed Bible believers, he suggested we consider an “alternative.” (We knew he meant an abortion.)

Our response? We agreed never to return to his office again, but instead to rely on the Word of God!

Often during that pregnancy, we prayed Psalm 138:8 (“The Lord will perfect that which concerns me”) and Psalm 139:13 (“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb”), expecting the curse to be reversed. Then we chose a name for our daughter, prophetically calling her Destiny Hope to counteract the prognosis they gave that she would have no hope and no destiny.

It worked. At some point in the next few months, the healing took place, and Destiny was born perfectly healthy. I believe these miracles happened because we dared to believe the promises God gave in His Word.

A Demonstration of Faith

In a variety of ways and means, this is a major part of what faith is all about—each generation transferring to the next what we have received from the everlasting Father.

This is God’s perspective too. For instance, when He revealed Himself to Noah, He made a pledge that continues even to this day: “As for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you. ... Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:9, 11).

Moreover, when God manifested Himself to Abraham, He didn’t just foretell that the great patriarch of our faith would be a channel of God’s blessing to others. Rather, He pledged to him, “In your seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18)—a promise that is still unfolding in amazing ways.

Read Hebrews 11. Most of the stories in that chapter, often dubbed “Faith’s Hall of Fame,” describe the effects of faithfulness on offspring of those who walked with God—the production of the seed, the protection of the seed, the perpetuation of the seed or the transference of blessing to the seed.

They Already Belong to God

Even if your children are presently walking in darkness and refusing to acknowledge the truth you embrace, don’t give in to discouragement. If you’re a lover of God, He’s adopted your kids as His own.

Read the following promise carefully: “Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Is. 43:5-7, emphasis added).

Notice God begins this passage by calling them “your descendants.” Then He commands, “Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth.” Apparently, because these children belong to you, God claims them as His own (since what belongs to you is “on the altar” and actually belongs to Him). The Redeemer promises to place His canopy of protection and provision over their lives. According to 1 Corinthians 7:14, they are even considered “holy” in the sight of heaven, separated from the world and consecrated to God’s purposes.

Though Satan and his demonic underlings constantly fight for the control of your children’s lives, God has uttered the war cry: “I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children” (Is. 49:25). That settles it—you and I had better not put a question mark where God has placed a period! As far as God is concerned, it is finished. He just needs you and me to pray the prayer of agreement and then to make a commitment to wait on the Lord.

Surely by now you can sense the power that comes from knowing and confessing these promises—and not just the few mentioned in this article. You need to become well-acquainted with the promises of God for your children—all 65 of them!—and start building a spiritual “wall of fire” around your family (Zech. 2:5).

Will you join me in the proclamation of these promises over our children? Let’s see the goodness of the Lord overflow with blessing from generation to generation, for hundreds of thousands of years.